OGGO Committee Report

Supplementary Opinion of the Liberal Party of Canada

The Liberal Party is in full agreement with 15 of the 16 recommendations made in this report.  However, we have some concerns regarding recommendation 15 relating to the Parliamentary Budget Officer.

Although the Liberal Party feels the mandate and power of the Parliamentary Budget Officer should be reviewed, we feel that the report could have gone much further in recommendations on how the PBO should evolve.

Mandate

Former Clerk of the House of Commons, Robert Marleau, was very clear in his opinion that the PBO should have a greater role in supporting the efforts of committees to study the estimates.

Allen Schick, Distinguished Professor at the School of Public Policy, Maryland, also suggested that the PBO’s role in directly supporting committees should be enhanced.

The Liberal Party feels that the mandate of the PBO must include three elements: support for macroeconomic analysis; support for Parliamentary study of the estimates; and support directly to individual Members with economic or expenditure questions.

Currently, the PBO does a good job at elements 1 and 3.  However, the PBO does not have the funding to support all Committees in their work on the estimates.  There, the Liberal Party recommends that:

Legislative and funding changes should be made so that the PBO can provide greater support to House of Commons Committees in their study of the estimates.

Reporting

Currently the PBO is part of the Library of Parliament, subordinate to the Parliamentary Librarian and ultimately reporting to the Standing Joint Committee on the Library of Parliament.

This has proven problematic for a number of reasons over the course of the past 5 years. Jurisdictional confusion between the PBO and the Library over budgeting have left the PBO underfunded.  Without a clear line to Parliament the PBO has not been able to provide the full range of services envisioned under its enabling legislation.

Witnesses at committee were nearly unanimous in their belief that the PBO should be made an Officer of Parliament. As part of the transition to an Officer of Parliament, the PBO should have its legislative mandate to request information strengthened.  The government should not be able to withhold macroeconomic analysis or program costing information from the PBO.  Therefore the Liberal Party recommends:

That the PBO be made an Officer of Parliament and that its power to request information be strengthened.